💀 Tales from the Grish: Season 1, Episode 2 – "And All Through the House"

🎙️ Hello, Boils and Ghouls

Here we are with Episode 2: "And All Through the House." The Crypt Keeper is dressed in his holiday best as Old St. Nick himself, complete with a mask where you can still see his eyes and lack of teeth. He tells us, the viewers, he’s “having a little holiday fun. Why else would I be in this get-up unless there was a 'clause' in my contract.” These opening sequences are just so good at setting the tone for the episode.

⚡ The Corpse-Encounter

"And All Through the House" follows a greedy wife who decides to murder her husband on Christmas Eve to collect whatever wealth he had left to her in his will. Things go awry when she fails to hear that an axe-wielding asylum escapee dressed as Santa Claus is on the loose. Of course, Axe-Santa shows up right when said wife is trying to get rid of her dead husband’s body. She calls the police, only to realize she’s in a bit of a holiday pickle—because if they come to help, they’ll find out she murdered her husband. Antics ensue with some great fight sequences, and in a classic Tales from the Crypt twist, her daughter manages to help Santa get his Christmas wish.

🎬 Ghoulish Gossip (Background Info)

The Chucky Connection: Kevin Yagher was the legendary special effects designer who was the mastermind behind the design and creation of the Crypt Keeper puppet. Cool fact! Yagher also created the doll Chucky of Child’s Play fame. He actually reused Chucky’s clear blue eyes for the Crypt Keeper puppet.
Hollywood Royalty: Robert Zemeckis (director of Back to the Future, among others) directed this episode. He would go on to personally direct three total episodes in the series.
A Family Affair: The actress who played the greedy wife, Mary Ellen Trainor (of The Goonies fame), was actually married to Robert Zemeckis at the time of this episode.
A Shocking Cast: The actor Larry Drake, who played Axe-Santa, was best known then for his kind-hearted role on L.A. Law, so seeing him as an axe-wielding maniac was a real shock to viewers. The dead husband, Joseph, was played by Marshall Bell (Total Recall 1990, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2). Lots of legendary actors in this episode.

🪓 The Grish’s Verdict

While this was a really fun holiday episode, and it gave me major Silent Night, Deadly Night vibes, it just wasn’t up to snuff with the standard Episode 1 set. Yes, Zemeckis—the legendary director of some of my favorite movies—directed this, but it just didn’t hit as hard as the first episode for me. Tales from the Crypt is great at dark comedy, but I think in this episode, there were too many goofy conveniences that happened. Of course, this is just my opinion, but this episode was kind of borderline too much goofy and not enough horror. Even the ending left me a little... meh. Yes, there's a twist... kind of. It just fell flat for me. Still, it was an OK episode.

Rating: 💀 💀 💀 / 5 Crypt Keeper Cackles